Japan Finally Did It

Bobby Miller 9 Jun, 2009 at 10:59pm ET Article published in Tech

It was only a matter of time, I suppose. Why am I not surprised

Most warm-blooded humans enjoy them a nice, big mech adorned with powerful weapons and gear. I love the Mechwarrior series myself–I bleed Battletech, from reading the literature, to playing the tabletop, and engrossing myself in the classic games. I, like most of the fans, anxiously await the day where I can enlist in the military and begin training to pilot a mech in a combat situation. Oh please oh please oh please…

Japan though, those guys take the cake for mech love. Everyone knows Japan will be the first to build walking, battling, dancing mechs that tower amongst buildings. They have finally done it, and built a true 1:1 scale replica of the RX78 Gundam from the popular original series.

The replica is not a permanent fixture in its current location and will be taken down at the end of August. Afterwards, expect some crazy fan to purchase the replica so that they can place it in their backyard.

Comments

9 Jun 2009 ~ 11:43pm DrLiam But can I get inside it. :P
10 Jun 2009 ~ 12:50am rolleggroll AMURO!!!!!
10 Jun 2009 ~ 12:51am chrisWhite You know, I grew up playing Mechwarrior and I loved those games, still love mechs. But the Japanese mechas don't do much for me, especially the Gundams. The Neon Genesis Evangelions are the closest ones to cool.

Now, fighting in a Mech is my kind of military action! Sign me up and could I get some cybernetics installed with that order?
10 Jun 2009 ~ 1:13am UPSLynx Oh, I'll be the first to admit. Seeing a mech use a sword ruins the illusion for me. I'm much more a 'weapons bolted to steel' kind of guy. I never could get into mechs that moved around rapidly in human-like fashions.

Battletech is great because it presents a future that's plausible, and potentially not far off from today's technologies.
10 Jun 2009 ~ 9:42am Cliff_Forster 100% awesome!
10 Jun 2009 ~ 2:01pm Garg There's still a Gundam fan somewhere deep inside me. If I were in Japan and it was still erected, I'd have to go see it.
10 Jun 2009 ~ 9:41pm Bandrik IT'S A GUNDAM!!

Somebody had to shout it.

Though I'm with UPSLynx here. Giant robot samurai fighting with swords just didn't quite click with me, either. I watched it, but still...

I guess I can understand how it would be intuitive to fight in a giant version of yourself, with two legs and two arms and all, but it still doesn't seem to make much feasible sense to me.

But I suppose being "realistic" is over-rated and isn't necessary to make a fun and entertaining viewing experience when it comes to space/futuristic scifi things. Hell, Nintendo was quite successful in bringing us furries in space fighters and Bungie with "ring-worlds". =P
10 Jun 2009 ~ 10:00pm RWB Big fan of Battletech myself, played since MechWarrior2 and have even played a bit of the original games. I used to read the novels like crazy, bought up the mech readouts and various things game related but never got to play as I grew up in a non-geek area

Those pics of that Gundam had my jaw dropped and plenty of drool flowing. One day maybe it'll be plausible, but they try to make Tanks as low profile as possible for a good reason, they don't stack more on top to make it a bigger target. But technologies change and if a mech could be built with the agility as a Gundam or Veritech fighter then it'd liely be more feasible.

Realistic is relative, things we think are rediculous or just outright impossible may not be so in the future or even near future. We have an XOS powered armor suit that works great except batteries suck, they we can soon build a space elevator, or put a Dome over downtown Houston(thank you Mega Engineering!). I can't wait to see what the future holds, even though some of it is downright scary.
10 Jun 2009 ~ 10:09pm Thrax in b4 weeaboo fapping
10 Jun 2009 ~ 11:16pm UPSLynx RWB, that is true. Just because I think it isn't plausible doesn't mean that it cannot eventually be done. Technology has ways of surprising us all.

I don't care how it's done, I just want real mechs.